CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT

Argued October 12, 1994 - Decided February
22, 1995

After the Chicago River flooded a freight tunnel
under the river and the basements of numerous buildings, petitioner corporation
and other victims brought tort actions in state court against respondent
Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. and petitioner Chicago. They claimed
that in the course of driving piles from a barge into the river bed months
earlier, Great Lakes had negligently weakened the tunnel, which had been
improperly maintained by the city. Great Lakes then filed this action,
invoking federal admiralty jurisdiction and seeking, inter alia, the protection
of the Limitation of Vessel Owner's Liability Act. That Act would permit
the admiralty court to decide whether Great Lakes had committed a tort
and, if so, to limit its liability to the value of the barges and tug involved
if the tort was committed without the privity or knowledge of the vessels'
owner. The District Court dismissed the suit for lack of admiralty jurisdiction,
but the Court of Appeals reversed.

Held:

The District Court has federal admiralty jurisdiction
over Great Lakes's Limitation Act suit. Pp. 3-21.

(a) A party seeking to invoke such jurisdiction
over a tort claim must satisfy conditions of both location and connection
with maritime activity. In applying the location test, a court must determine
whether the tort occurred on navigable water or whether injury suffered
on land was caused by a vessel on navigable water. 46 U.S.C. App. 740.
In applying the connection test, a court first Page II must assess the
"general features of the type of incident involved" to determine if the
incident has "a potentially disruptive impact on maritime commerce." Sisson
v. Ruby, 497 U.S. 358, 363 , 364, n. 2. If so, the
court must determine whether the character of the activity giving rise
to the incident shows a substantial relationship to traditional maritime
activity. Id., at 365, 364, and n. 2. Pp. 3-6.

(b) The location test is
readily satisfied here. The alleged tort was committed on a navigable river,
and petitioners do not seriously dispute that Great Lakes's barge is a
"vessel" for admiralty tort purposes. There is no need or justification
for imposing an additional jurisdictional requirement that the damage done
must be close in time and space to the activity that caused it. A nonremoteness
requirement is not supported by the Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction
Act's language, and the phrase "caused by" used in that Act indicates that
the proper standard is proximate cause. Gutierrez v. Waterman S. S. Corp.,
373 U.S. 206, 210 , distinguished. Pp. 6-10.

(c) The maritime connection
test is also satisfied here. The incident's "general features" may be described
as damage by a vessel in navigable water to an underwater structure. There
is little question that this is the kind of incident that has "a potentially
disruptive impact on maritime commerce." Damaging the structure could lead
to a disruption in the water course itself and, as actually happened here,
could lead to restrictions on navigational use during repairs. There is
also no question that the activity giving rise to the incident - repair
or maintenance work on a navigable waterway performed from a vessel - shows
a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity. Even the assertion
that the city's alleged failure to properly maintain and operate the tunnel
system was a proximate cause of the flood damage does not take this case
out of admiralty. Under Sisson, the substantial relationship test is satisfied
when at least one alleged tortfeasor was engaging in activity substantially
related to traditional maritime activity and such activity is claimed to
have been a proximate cause of the incident. There is no merit to the argument
that the activity should be characterized at a hypergeneralized level,
such as "repair and maintenance," to eliminate any hint of maritime connection,
or to the argument that Sisson is being given too expansive a reading.
Pp. 10-16.

(d) There are theoretical,
as well as practical, reasons to reject the city's proposed multifactor
test for admiralty jurisdiction where most of the victims, and one of the
tortfeasors, are land based. The Sisson tests are directed at the same
objectives invoked to support a multifactor test, the elimination of admiralty
jurisdiction where the rationale for the jurisdiction does not support
it. In the Extension Page III Act, Congress has already made a judgment
that a land-based victim may properly be subject to admiralty jurisdiction;
surely a land-based joint tortfeasor has no claim to supposedly more favorable
treatment. Moreover, contrary to the city's position, exercise of admiralty
jurisdiction does not result in automatic displacement of state law. A
multifactor test would also be hard to apply, jettisoning relative predictability
for the open-ended rough-and-tumble of factors, inviting complex argument
in a trial court and a virtually inevitable appeal. Pp. 16-21.

3 F.3d 225, affirmed.

SOUTER, J., delivered the
opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and O'CONNOR, KENNEDY,
and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. O'CONNOR, J., filed a concurring opinion. THOMAS,
J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which SCALIA, J., joined.
STEVEN and BREYER, JJ., took no part in the decision of the case.

JUSTICE SOUTER delivered
the opinion of the Court.

On April 13, 1992, water
from the Chicago River poured into a freight tunnel running under the river
and thence into the basements of buildings in the downtown Chicago Loop.
Allegedly, the flooding resulted from events several months earlier, when
the respondent Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company had used a crane, sitting
on a barge in the river next to a bridge, to drive piles into the river
bed above the tunnel. The issue before us is whether a court of the United
States has admiralty jurisdiction to determine and limit the extent of
Great Lakes's tort liability. We hold the case to be within federal admiralty
jurisdiction.

I

The complaint, together with
affidavits subject to no objection, alleges the following facts. In 1990,
Great Lakes bid on a contract with the petitioner city of Chicago to replace
wooden pilings clustered around the piers of several bridges spanning the
Chicago River, a navigable waterway within the meaning of The Daniel Ball,
10 Wall. 557, 563 (1871). See Escanaba Co. v. Chicago, 107 U.S. 678, 683
(1883). The pilings (called dolphins) keep ships from bumping into the
piers and so protect both. After winning the contract, Great Lakes carried
out the work with two barges towed by a tug. One barge carried pilings;
the other carried a crane that pulled out old pilings and helped drive
in new ones.

In August and September
1991, Great Lakes replaced the pilings around the piers projecting into
the river and supporting the Kinzie Street Bridge. After towing the crane-carrying
barge into position near one of the piers, Great Lakes's employees secured
the barge to the river bed with spuds, or long metal legs that project
down from the barge and anchor it. The workers then used the crane on the
barge to pull up old pilings, stow them on the other barge, and drive new
pilings into the river bed around the piers. About seven months later,
an eddy formed in the river near the bridge as the collapsing walls or
ceiling of a freight tunnel running under the river opened the tunnel to
river water, which flowed through to flood buildings in the Loop.

After the flood, many of
the victims brought actions in state court against Great Lakes and the
city of Chicago, claiming that in the course of replacing the pilings Great
Lakes had negligently weakened the tunnel structure, which Chicago (its
owner) had not properly maintained. Great Lakes then brought this lawsuit
in the United States District Court, invoking federal admiralty jurisdiction.
Count I of the complaint seeks the protection of the Limitation of Vessel
Owner's Liability Act (Limitation Act), 46 U.S.C. App. 181 et seq., a statute
that would, in effect, permit the admiralty court to decide whether Great
Lakes committed a tort and, if so, to limit Great Lakes's liability to
the value of the vessels (the tug and two barges) involved if the tort
was committed "without the privity or knowledge" of the vessels' owner,
46 U.S.C. App. 183(a). Counts II and III of Great Lakes's complaint ask
for indemnity and contribution from the city for any resulting loss to
Great Lakes.

The city, joined by petitioner
Jerome B. Grubart, Inc., one of the state-court plaintiffs, filed a motion
to dismiss this suit for lack of admiralty jurisdiction. Fed. Rule Civ.
Proc. 12(b)(1). The District Court granted the motion, the Seventh Circuit
reversed, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Chicago, 3 F.3d 225 (1993),
and we granted certiorari, 510 U.S. ___ (1994). We now affirm.

II

The parties do not dispute
the Seventh Circuit's conclusion that jurisdiction as to Counts II and
III (indemnity and contribution) hinges on jurisdiction over the Count
I claim. See 3 F.3d, at 231, n. 9; see also 28 U.S.C. 1367 (1988 ed., Supp.
V) (supplemental jurisdiction); Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 14(a) and (c) (impleader
of third parties). Thus, the issue is simply whether or not a federal admiralty
court has jurisdiction over claims that Great Lakes's faulty replacement
work caused the flood damage.

The traditional test for
admiralty tort jurisdiction asked only whether the tort occurred on navigablewaters.
If it did, admiralty jurisdiction followed; if it did not, admiralty jurisdiction
did not exist. See, e.g., Thomas v. Lane, 23 F. Cas. 957, 960 (No. 13902)
(CC Me. 1813) (Story, J., on Circuit). This ostensibly simple locality
test was complicated by the rule that the injury had to be "wholly" sustained
on navigable waters for the tort to be within admiralty. The Plymouth,
3 Wall. 20, 34 (1866) (no jurisdiction over tort action brought by the
owner of warehouse destroyed in a fire that started on board a ship docked
nearby). Thus, admiralty courts lacked jurisdiction over, say, a claim
following a ship's collision with a pier insofar as it injured the pier,
for admiralty law treated the pier as an extension of the land. Martin
v. West, 222 U.S. 191, 197 (1911); Cleveland T. & V. R. Co. v. Cleveland
S. S. Co., 208 U.S. 316, 319 (1908).

This latter rule was changed
in 1948, however, when Congress enacted the Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction
Act, 62 Stat. 496. The Act provided that

"[t]he admiralty and maritime
jurisdiction of the United States shall extend to and include all cases
of damage or injury, to person or property, caused by a vessel on navigable
water, notwithstanding that such damage or injury be done or consummated
on land." 46 U.S.C. App. 740.

The purpose of the Act was
to end concern over the sometimes confusing line between land and water,
by investing admiralty with jurisdiction over "all cases" a ship or other
vessel on navigable water, even if such injury occurred on land. See, e.g.,
Gutierrez v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 373 U.S. 206, 209 -210 (1963); Executive
Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland, 409 U.S. 249, 260 (1972).

After this congressional
modification to gather the odd case into admiralty, the jurisdictional
rule was qualified again in three decisions of this Court aimed at keepinga
different class of odd cases out. In the first case, Executive Jet, supra,
tort claims arose out of the wreck of an airplane that collided with a
flock of birds just after take-off on a domestic flight and fell into the
navigable waters of Lake Erie. We held that admiralty lacked jurisdiction
to consider the claims. We wrote that "a purely mechanical application
of the locality test" was not always "sensible" or "consonant with the
purposes of maritime law, id., at 261, as when (for example) the literal
and universal application of the locality rule would require admiralty
courts to adjudicate tort disputes between colliding swimmers, id., at
255. We held that "claims arising from airplane accidents are not cognizable
in admiralty" despite the location of the harm, unless the "the wrong bear[s]
a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity." Id., at 268.

The second decision, Foremost
Ins. Co. v. Richardson, 457 U.S. 668 (1982), dealt with tort claims arising
out of the collision of two pleasure boats in a navigable river estuary.
We held that admiralty courts had jurisdiction, id., at 677, even though
jurisdiction existed only if "the wrong" had "a significant connection
with traditional maritime activity," id., at 674. We conceded that pleasure
boats themselves had little to do with the maritime commerce lying at the
heart of the admiralty court's basic work, id., at 674-675, but we nonetheless
found the necessary relationship in

"[t]he potential disruptive
impact [upon maritime commerce] of a collision between boats on navigable
waters, when coupled with the traditional concern that admiralty law holds
for navigation . . . ." Id., at 675.

In the most recent of the trilogy,
Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U.S. 358 (1990), we held that a federal admiralty court
had jurisdiction over tort claims arising when a fire, caused by a defective
washer/dryer aboard a pleasure boat docked at a marina, burned the boat,
other boats docked nearby, and the marina itself. Id., at 367. We elaborated
on the enquiry exemplified in Executive Jet and Foremost by focusing on
two points to determine the relationship of a claim to the objectives of
admiralty jurisdiction. We noted, first, that the incident causing the
harm, the burning of docked boats at a marina on navigable waters, was
of a sort "likely to disrupt [maritime] commercial activity." Id., at 363.
Second, we found a "substantial relationship" the kind of activity from
which the incident arose, "the storage and maintenance of a vessel . .
. on navigable waters." Id., at 365-367.

After Sisson, then, a party
seeking to invoke federal admiralty jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
1333(1) over a tort claim must satisfy conditions both of location and
of connection with maritime activity. A court applying the location test
must determine whether the tort occurred on navigable water or whether
injury suffered on land was caused by a vessel on navigable water. 46 U.S.C.
App. 740. The connection test raises two issues. A court, first, must "assess
the general features of the type of incident involved," 497 U.S., at 363
, to determine whether the incident has "a potentially disruptive impact
on maritime commerce," id., at 364, n. 2. Second, a court must determine
whether "the general character" of the "activity giving rise to the incident"
shows a "substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity." Id.,
at 365, 364, and n. 2. We now apply the tests to the facts of this case.

B

The location test is, of course,
readily satisfied. If Great Lakes caused the flood, it must have done so
by weakening the structure of the tunnel while it drove in new pilings
or removed old ones around the bridge piers. The weakening presumably took
place as Great Lakes's workers lifted and replaced the pilings with a crane
that sat on a barge stationed in the Chicago River. The place in the river
where the barge sat, and from which workers directed the crane, is in the
"navigable waters of the United States." Escanaba Co., 107 U.S., at 683.
Thus, if Great Lakes committed a tort, it must have done it while on navigable
waters.

It must also have done it
"by a vessel." Even though the barge was fastened to the river bottom and
was in use as a work platform at the times in question, at other times
it was used for transportation. See 3 F.3d, at 229. Petitioners do not
here seriously dispute the conclusion of each court below that the Great
Lakes barge is, for admiralty tort purposes, a "vessel." The fact that
the pile-driving was done with a crane makes no difference under the location
test, given the maritime law that ordinarily treats an "appurtenance" attached
to a vessel in navigable waters as part of the vessel itself. See, e.g.,
Victory Carriers, Inc. v. Law, 404 U.S. 202, 210 -211 (1971); Gutierrez,
373 U.S., at 209 -210.1

Because the injuries suffered
by Grubart and the other flood victims were caused by a vessel on navigable
water, the location enquiry would seem to be at an end, "notwithstanding
that such damage or injury [have been] done or consummated on land." 46
U.S.C. App. 740. Both Grubart and Chicago nonetheless ask us to subject
the Extension Act to limitations not apparent from its text. While they
concede that the Act refers to "all cases of damage or injury," they argue
that "all" must not mean literally every such case, no matter how great
the distance between the vessel's tortious activity and the resulting harm.
They contend that, to be within the Act, the damage must be close in time
and space to the activity that caused it: that it must occur "reasonably
contemporaneously" with the negligent conduct and no "farther from navigable
waters than the reach of the vessel, its appurtenances and cargo." For
authority, they point to this Court's statement in Gutierrez, supra, that
jurisdiction is present when the "impact" of the tortious activity "is
felt ashore at a time and place not remote from the wrongful act." Id.,
at 210.2

The demerits of this argument
lie not only in its want of textual support for its nonremoteness rule,
but in its disregard of a less stringent but familiar proximity condition
tied to the language of the statute. The Act uses the phrase "caused by,"
which more than one Court of Appeals has read as requiring what tort law
has traditionally called "proximate causation." See, e.g., Pryor v. American
President Lines, 520 F.2d 974, 979 (CA4 1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1055
(1976); Adams v. Harris County, 452 F.2d 994, 996-997 (CA5 1971),cert.
denied, 406 U.S. 968 (1972). This classic tort notion normally eliminates
the bizarre, cf. Palsgraf v. Long Island R. Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N. E.
99 (1928), and its use should obviate not only the complication but even
the need for further temporal or spatial limitations. Nor is reliance on
familiar proximate causation inconsistent with Gutierrez, which used its
nonremote language, not to announce a special test, but simply to distinguish
its own facts (the victim having slipped on beans spilling from cargo containers
being unloaded from a ship) from what the Court called "[v]arious far-fetched
hypotheticals," such as injury to someone slipping on beans that continue
to leak from the containers after they had been shipped from Puerto Rico
to a warehouse in Denver. 373 U.S., at 210 . See also Victory Carriers,
supra, at 210-211.

The city responds by saying
that, as a practical matter, the use of proximate cause as a limiting jurisdictional
principle would undesirably force an admiralty court to investigate the
merits of the dispute at the outset of a case when it determined jurisdiction.3
The argument, of course, assumes that the truth of jurisdictional
allegations must always be determined with finality at the threshold of
litigation, but that assumption is erroneous. Normal practice permits a
party to establish jurisdiction at the outset of a case by means of a nonfrivolous
assertion of jurisdictional elements, see, e.g., Bray v. Alexandria Women's
Health Clinic, 506 U.S. ___, ___ (1993) (slip op., at 21); Bell v. Hood,
327 U.S. 678, 682 -683 (1946), and any litigation of a contested subject-matter
jurisdictional fact issue occurs in comparatively summary procedure before
a judge alone (as district from litigation of the same fact issue as an
element of the cause of action, if the claim survives the jurisdictional
objection). See 2A J. Moore & J. Lucas, Moore's Federal Practice
12.07[2. - 1] (2d ed. 1994); 5A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice
and Procedure 1350 (2d ed. 1990). There is no reason why this should not
be just as true for proximate causation as it is for the maritime nature
of the tortfeasor's activity giving rise to the incident. See Sisson, 497
U.S., at 365 . There is no need or justification, then, for imposing an
additional nonremoteness hurdle in the name of jurisdiction.

C

We now turn to the maritime
connection enquiries, the first being whether the incident involved was
of a sort with the potential to disrupt maritime commerce. In Sisson, we
described the features of the incident ingeneral
terms as "a fire on a vessel docked at a marina on navigable waters," id.,
at 363, and determined that such an incident "plainly satisf[ied]" the
first maritime connection requirement, ibid., because the fire could have
"spread to nearby commercial vessels or ma[d]e the marina inaccessible
to such vessels" and therefore "[c]ertainly" had a "potentially disruptive
impact on maritime commerce." Id., at 362. We noted that this first prong
went to potential effects, not to the "particular facts of the incident,"
noting that in both Executive Jet and Foremost we had focused not on the
specific facts at hand but on whether the "general features" of the incident
were "likely to disrupt commercial activity." 497 U.S., at 363 .

The first Sisson test turns,
then, on a description of the incident at an intermediate level of possible
generality. To speak of the incident as "fire" would have been too general
to differentiate cases; at the other extreme, to have described the fire
as damaging nothing but pleasure boats and their tie-up facilities would
have ignored, among other things, the capacity of pleasure boats to endanger
commercial shipping that happened to be nearby. We rejected both extremes
and instead asked whether the incident could be seen within a class of
incidents that posed more than a fanciful risk to commercial shipping.

Following Sisson, the "general
features" of the incident at issue here may be described as damage by a
vessel in navigable water to an underwater structure. So characterized,
there is little question that this is the kind of incident that has a "potentially
disruptive impact on maritime commerce." As it actually turned out in this
case, damaging a structure beneath the river bed could lead to a disruption
in the water course itself, App. 33 (eddy formed above the leak); and,
again as it actually happened, damaging a structure so situated could lead
to restrictions on the navigational use of the waterwayduring
required repairs. See Pet. for Cert. in No. 93-1094, p. 22a (District Court
found that after the flood "[t]he river remained closed for over a month,"
"[r]iver traffic ceased, several commuter ferries were stranded, and many
barges could not enter the river system . . . because the river level was
lowered to aid repair efforts"). Cf. Pennzoil Producing Co. v. Offshore
Express, Inc., 943 F.2d 1465 (CA5 1991) (admiralty suit when vessel struck
and ruptured gas pipeline and gas exploded); Marathon Pipe Line Co. v.
Drilling Rig Rowan/Odessa, 761 F.2d 229, 233 (CA5 1985) (admiralty jurisdiction
when vessel struck pipeline, "a fixed structure on the seabed"); Orange
Beach Water, Sewer, and Fire Protection Authority v. M/V Alva, 680 F.2d
1374 (CA11 1982) (admiralty suit when vessel struck underwater pipeline).

In the second Sisson enquiry,
we look to whether the general character of the activity giving rise to
the incident shows a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity.
We ask whether a tortfeasor's activity, commercial or noncommercial, on
navigable waters is so closely related to activity traditionally subject
to admiralty law that the reasons for applying special admiralty rules
would apply in the case at hand. Navigation of boats in navigable waters
clearly falls within the substantial relationship, Foremost, 457 U.S.,
at 675 ; storing them at a marina on navigable waters is close enough,
Sisson, supra, at 367; whereas in flying an airplane over the water, Executive
Jet, 409 U.S., at 270 -271, as in swimming, id., at 255-256, the relationship
is too attenuated.

On like reasoning, the "activity
giving rise to the incident" in this case, Sisson, supra, at 364, should
be characterized as repair or maintenance work on a navigable waterway
performed from a vessel. Described in this way, there is no question that
the activity is substantially related to traditional maritime activity,
for barges and similar vessels have traditionally been engaged in repair
work similar to what Great Lakes contracted to perform here. See, e.g.,
Shea v. Rev-Lyn Contracting Co., 868 F.2d 515, 518 (CA1 1989) (bridge repair
by crane-carrying barge); Nelson v. United States, 639 F.2d 469, 472 (CA9
1980) (Kennedy, J.) (repair of wave suppressor from a barge); In re New
York Dock Co., 61 F.2d 777 (CA2 1932) (pile driving from crane-carrying
barge in connection with the building of a dock); In re P. Sanford Ross,
Inc., 196 F. 921, 923-924 (EDNY 1912) (pile driving from crane-carrying
barge close to water's edge), rev'd on other grounds, 204 F. 248 (CA2 1913);
cf. In re The V-14813, 65 F.2d 789, 790 (CA5 1933) ("[t]here are many cases
holding that a dredge, or a barge with a pile driver, employed on navigable
waters, is subject to maritime jurisdiction"); Lawrence v. Flatboat, 84
F. 200 (SD Ala. 1897) (pile driving from crane-carrying barge in connection
with the erection of bulkheads), aff'd sub nom. Southern Log Cart &
Supply Co. v. Lawrence, 86 F. 907 (CA5 1898).

The city argues, to the
contrary, that a proper application of the activity prong of Sisson would
consider the city's own alleged failure at properly maintaining and operating
the tunnel system that runs under the river. City Brief 48-49. If this
asserted proximate cause of the flood victims' injuries were considered,
the city submits, its failure to resemble any traditional maritime activity
would take this case out of admiralty.

The city misreads Sisson,
however, which did not consider the activities of the washer/dryer manufacturer,
who was possibly an additional tortfeasor, and whose activities were hardly
maritime; the activities of Sisson, the boat owner, supplied the necessary
substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity. Likewise, in
Foremost, we said that "[b]ecause the `wrong' here involves the negligent
operation of a vessel on navigable waters, we believe that it has a sufficient
nexus totraditional maritime activity to sustain
admiralty jurisdiction . . . ." 457 U.S., at 674 . By using the word "involves,"
we made it clear that we need to look only to whether one of the arguably
proximate causes of the incident originated in the maritime activity of
a tortfeasor: as long as one of the putative tortfeasors was engaged in
traditional maritime activity the allegedly wrongful activity will "involve"
such traditional maritime activity and will meet the second nexus prong.
Thus, even if we were to identify the "activity giving rise to the incident"
as including the acts of the city as well as Great Lakes, admiralty jurisdiction
would nevertheless attach. That result would be true to Sisson's requirement
of a "substantial relationship" between the "activity giving rise to the
incident" and traditional maritime activity. Sisson did not require, as
the city in effect asserts, that there be a complete identity between the
two. The substantial relationship test is satisfied when at least one alleged
tortfeasor was engaging in activity substantially related to traditional
maritime
activity and such activity is claimed to have been a proximate cause of
the incident.

Petitioners also argue that
we might get a different result simply by characterizing the "activity"
in question at a different level of generality, perhaps as "repair and
maintenance," or, as "pile driving near a bridge." The city is, of course,
correct that a tortfeasor's activity can be described at a sufficiently
high level of generality to eliminate any hint of maritime connection,
and if that were properly done Sisson would bar assertion of admiralty
jurisdiction. But to suggest that such hyper-generalization ought to be
the rule would convert Sisson into a vehicle for eliminating admiralty
jurisdiction. Although there is inevitably some play in the joints in selecting
the right level of generality when applying the Sisson test, the inevitable
imprecision is not an excuse for whimsy. The test turns on the comparison
of traditional maritime activity to the arguably maritime character of
the tortfeasor's activity in a given case; the comparison would merely
be frustrated by eliminating the maritime aspect of the tortfeasor's activity
from consideration.4

Grubart makes an additional
claim that Sisson is being given too expansive a reading. If the activity
at issue here is considered maritime-related, it argues, then virtually
"every activity involving a vessel on navigable waters" would be "a traditional
maritime activity sufficient to invoke maritime jurisdiction." Grubart
Brief 6. But this is not fatal criticism. This Court has not proposed any
radical alteration of the traditional criteria for invoking admiralty jurisdiction
in tort cases, but has simply followed the lead of the lower federal courts
in rejecting a location rule so rigid as to extend admiralty to a case
involving an airplane, not a vessel, engaged in an activity far removed
from anything traditionally maritime. See Executive Jet, 409 U.S., at 268
-274; see also Peytavin v. Government Employees Ins. Co., 453 F.2d 1121,
1127 (CA5 1972) (no jurisdiction over claim for personal injury by motorist
who was rear-ended while waiting for a ferry on a floating pontoon serving
as the ferry's landing); Chapman v. Grosse Pointe Farms, 385 F.2d 962 (CA6
1967) (no admiralty jurisdiction over claim of swimmer who injured himself
when diving off pier into shallow but navigable water). In the cases after
Executive Jet, the Court stressed the need for a maritime connection, but
found one in the navigation or berthing of pleasure boats, despite the
facts that the pleasure boat activity took place near shore, where States
have a strong interest in applying their own tort law, or was not on all
fours with the maritime shipping and commerce that has traditionally made
up the business of most maritime courts. Sisson, 497 U.S., at 367 ; Foremost,
457 U.S., at 675 . Although we agree with petitioners that these cases
do not say that every tort involving a vessel on navigable waters falls
within the scope of admiralty jurisdiction no matter what, they do show
that ordinarily that will be so.5

III

Perhaps recognizing the difficulty
of escaping the case law, petitioners ask us to change it. In cases "involving
land based parties and injuries," the city would have us adopt a condition
of jurisdiction that

"the totality of the circumstances
reflects a federal interest in protecting maritime commerce sufficiently
weighty to justify shifting what would otherwise be state-court litigation
into federal court under the federal law of admiralty." City Brief 32.

Grubart and the city say that
the Fifth Circuit has applied a somewhat similar "four-factor test" looking
to "the functions and roles of the parties; the types of vehicles and instrumentalities
involved; the causation and the type of injury; and traditional concepts
of the role of admiralty law." Kelly v. Smith, 485 F.2d 520, 525 (CA5 1973);
see also Molett v. Penrod Drilling Co., 826 F.2d 1419, 1426 (CA5 1987)
(adding three more factors: the "impact of the event on maritime shipping
and commerce"; "the desirability of a uniform national rule to apply to
such matters"; and "the need for admiralty `expertise' in the trial and
decision of the case"), cert. denied sub nom. Columbus-McKinnon, Inc. v.
Gearench, Inc., 493 U.S. 1003 (1989). Although they point out that Sisson
disapproved the use of four-factor or seven-factor tests "where all the
relevant entities are engaged in similar types of activity," this rule
implicitly left the matter open for cases like this one, where most of
the victims, and one of the tortfeasors, are based on land. See 497 U.S.,
at 365 , n. 3 ("Different issues may be raised by a case in which one of
the instrumentalities is engaged in a traditional maritime activity, but
the other is not"). The city argues that there is a good reason why cases
like this one should get different treatment. Since the basic rationale
for federal admiralty jurisdiction is "protection of maritime commerce
through uniform rules of decision," the proposed jurisdictional test would
improve on Sisson in limiting the scope of admiralty jurisdiction more
exactly to its rationale. A multiple factor test would minimize, if not
eliminate, the awkward possibility that federal admiralty rules or procedures
will govern a case, to the disadvantage of state law, when admiralty's
purpose does not require it. Cf. Foremost, supra, at 677-686 (Powell, J.,
dissenting).

Although the arguments are
not frivolous, they do not persuade. It is worth recalling that the Sisson
tests are aimed at the same objectives invoked to support a new multifactor
test, the elimination of admiralty jurisdiction where the rationale for
the jurisdiction does not support it. If the tort produces no potential
threat to maritime commerce or occurs during activity lacking a substantial
relationship to traditional maritime activity, Sisson assumes that the
objectives of admiralty jurisdiction probably do not require its exercise,
even if the location test is satisfied. If, however, the Sisson tests are
also satisfied, it is not apparent why the need for admiralty jurisdiction
in aid of maritime commerce somehow becomes less acute merely because land-based
parties happen to be involved. Certainly Congress did not think a land-based
party necessarily diluted the need for admiralty jurisdiction or it would
have kept its hands off the primitive location test.

Of course one could claim
it to be odd that under Sisson a land-based party (or more than one) may
be subject to admiralty jurisdiction, but it would appear no less odd under
the city's test that a maritime tortfeasor in the most traditional mould
might be subject to state common-law jurisdiction. Other things being equal,
it is not evident why the first supposed anomaly is worse than the second.
But other things are not even equal. As noted just above, Congress has
already made the judgment, in the Extension Act, that a land-based victim
may properly be subject to admiralty jurisdiction. Surely a land-based
joint tortfeasor has no claim to supposedly more favorable treatment.

Nor are these the only objections
to the city's position. Contrary to what the city suggests, City Brief
10, 14-15, 25-26, 30, exercise of federal admiralty jurisdiction does not
result in automatic displacement of state law. It is true that, "[w]ith
admiralty jurisdiction comes the application of substantive admiralty law."
East River S. S. Corp. v. Transamerica DeLaval Inc., 476 U.S. 858, 864
(1986). But, to characterize that law, as the city apparently does, as
"federal rules of decision," City Brief 15, is

"a destructive oversimplification
of the highly intricate interplay of the States and the National Government
in their regulation of maritime commerce. It is true that state law must
yield to the needs of a uniform federal maritime law when this Court finds
inroads on a harmonious system. But this limitation still leaves the States
a wide scope." Romero v. International Terminal Operating Co., 358 U.S.
354, 373 (1959) (footnote omitted).

See East River, supra, at 864-865
("Drawn from state and federal sources, the general maritime law is an
amalgam of traditional common-law rules, modifications of those rules,
and newly created rules" (footnote omitted)). Thus, the city's proposal
to synchronize the jurisdictional enquiry with the test for determining
the applicable substantive law would discard a fundamental feature of admiralty
law, that federal admiralty courts sometimes do apply state law. See, e.g.,
American Dredging Co. v. Miller, 510 U.S. ___, ___ (1994) (slip op., at
7-8); see also 1 S. Friedell, Benedict on Admiralty 112 p. 7-49 (7th ed.
1994).6

Finally, on top of these
objections going to the city's premises there is added a most powerful
one based on the practical consequences of adopting a multifactor test.
Although the existing case law tempers the locality test with the added
requirements looking to potential harm and traditional activity, it reflects
customary practice in seeing jurisdiction as the norm when the tort originates
with a vessel in navigable waters, and in treating departure from the locality
principle as the exception. For better or worse, the case law has thus
carved out the approximate shape of admiralty jurisdiction in a way that
admiralty lawyers understand reasonably well. As against this approach,
so familiar and relatively easy, the proposed four- or seven-factor test
would be hard to apply, jettisoning relative predictability for the open-ended
rough-and-tumble of factors, inviting complex argument in a trial court
and a virtually inevitable appeal.

Consider, for example, just
one of the factors under the city's test, requiring a district court at
the beginning of every purported admiralty case to determine the source
(state or federal) of the applicable substantive law. The difficulty of
doing that was an important reason why this Court in Romero, supra, was
unable to hold that maritime claims fell within the scope of the federal-question-jurisdiction
statute, 28 U.S.C. 1331. 358 U.S., at 375 -376 ("sound judicial policy
does not encourage a situation which necessitates constant adjudication
of the boundaries of state and federal competence"). That concern applies
just as strongly to cases invoking a district court's admiralty jurisdiction
under 28 U.S.C. 1333, under which the jurisdictional enquiry for maritime
torts has traditionally been quite uncomplicated.

Reasons of practice, then,
are as weighty as reasons of theory for rejecting the city's call to adopt
a multifactor test for admiralty jurisdiction for the benefit of land-based
parties to a tort action.

Accordingly, we conclude
that the Court of Appeals correctly held that the District Court had admiralty
jurisdiction over the respondent's Limitation Act suit. The judgment of
the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

JUSTICE STEVENS and JUSTICE
BREYER took no part in the decision of this case.

Footnotes

1. Grubart argues, based
on Margin v. Sea-Land Services, Inc., 812 F.2d 973, 975 (CA5 1987), that
an appurtenance is considered part of the vessel only when it is defective.
See Brief for Petitioner in No. 93-762, pp. 34-35 (Grubart Brief). Margin,
however, does not so hold. It dealt with a land based crane that lowered
a ship's hatch cover dangerously close to a welder working on a dock, and
its result turned not on the condition of the hatch cover, the putative
appurtenance, but on the fact that the plaintiff did not allege that "vessel
negligence proximately caused his injury." 812 F.2d, at 977. Indeed, the
argument that Congress intended admiralty jurisdiction to extend to injuries
caused by defective appurtenances, but not to appurtenances in good condition
when operated negligently, makes no sense. See Gutierrez, 373 U.S., at
210 ("There is no distinction in admiralty between torts committed by the
ship itself and by the ship's personnel while operating it . . . .").

2. At oral argument, counsel
for the city undercut this argument by conceding that admiralty jurisdiction
would govern claims arising from an incident in which a ship on navigable
waters slipped its moorings, drifted into a dam, and caused a breach in
the dam that resulted in flooding of surrounding territory. Tr. of Oral
Arg. 17.

3. The city in part bases
its assertion about the practical effects of a proximate cause rule on
a reading of Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 54-56 (1932), which, according
to the city, held that the Longshoremen's and Harbor Worker's Compensation
Act could not constitutionally apply to an employee absent a finding that
he was actually injured on navigable waters. Thus, the city argues, a construction
of the Extension Act that would permit the assertion of federal jurisdiction
over land-based injuries absent a finding, on the merits, of actual causation
"would raise serious constitutional questions." See Brief for Petitioner
in No. 93-1094, pp. 41-42 (City Brief).

Even if the city's interpretation
of Crowell is correct, it is not dispositive here. Constitutional difficulties
need not arise when a court defers final determination of facts upon which
jurisdiction depends until after the first jurisdictional skirmish. In
the standing context, for example, we have held that "the Constitution
does not require that the plaintiff offer . . . proof [of the facts showing
that the plaintiff sustained actual injury] as a threshold matter in order
to invoke the District Court's jurisdiction." Gwaltney of Smithfield, Ltd.
v. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc., 484 U.S. 49, 66 (1987). We see no reason
why a different rule should apply here, and find ourselves in the company
of the city's own amici. See Brief for National Conference of State Legislatures
et al. as Amici Curiae 18-19, n. 9 (suggesting that "a court need not decide
the merits of causation issues to resolve a jurisdictional challenge").

4. The city also proposes
that we define the activity as "the operation of an underground tunnel
connected to Loop buildings." City Brief 49-50. But doing this would eliminate
the maritime tortfeasor's activity from consideration entirely. This (like
the choice of a supreme level of generality, described in the text) would
turn Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U.S. 358 (1990), on its head, from a test to weed
out torts without a maritime connection into an arbitrary exercise for
eliminating jurisdiction over even vessel-related torts connected to traditional
maritime commerce.

5. Because we conclude that
the tort alleged in Count I of Great Lakes's complaint satisfies both the
location and connection tests necessary for admiralty jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. 1333(1), we need not consider respondent's alternative argument
that the Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction Act, 46 U.S.C. App. 740, provides
an independent basis of federal jurisdiction over the complaint.

6. We will content ourselves
simply with raising a question about another of the city's assumptions,
which does not go to anything dispositive for us. It is true that this
Court has said that "the primary focus of admiralty jurisdiction is unquestionably
the protection of maritime commerce," Foremost Ins. Co. v. Richardson,
457 U.S. 668, 674 (1982); see Sisson, 497 U.S., at 367 ; see id., at 364,
n. 2, a premise that recently has been questioned, see Casto, The Origins
of Federal Admiralty Jurisdiction in an Age of Privateers, Smugglers, and
Pirates, 37 Am. J. Legal Hist. 117 (1993). However that may be, this Court
has never limited the interest in question to the "protection of maritime
commerce through uniform rules of decision," as the city would have it.
City Brief 19. Granted, whatever its precise purpose, it is likely that
Congress thought of uniformity of substantive law as a subsidiary goal
conducive to furthering that purpose. See Currie, Federalism and the Admiralty:
"The Devil's Own Mess," 1960 S. Ct. Rev. 158, 163 ("[A] uniform law was
apparently one reason for the establishment of the admiralty jurisdiction
in 1789" (footnote omitted)). But we are unwilling to rule out that the
first Congress saw a value in federal admiralty courts beyond fostering
uniformity of substantive law, stemming, say, from a concern with local
bias similar to the presupposition for diversity jurisdiction. See The
Federalist No. 80, p. 538 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton) ("maritime
causes . . . so commonly affect the rights of foreigners"); 1 M. Farrand,
Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 124 (1911); 2 id., at 46;
see generally D. Robertson, Admiralty and Federalism 95-103 (1970). After
all, if uniformity of substantive law had been Congress's only concern,
it could have left admiralty jurisdiction in the state courts subject to
an appeal to a national tribunal (as it did with federal-question jurisdiction
until 1875, and as the Articles of Federation had done with cases of prize
and capture).

JUSTICE O'CONNOR, concurring.

I concur in the Court's
judgment and opinion. The Court properly holds that, when a court is faced
with a case involving multiple tortfeasors, some of whom may not be maritime
actors, if one of the putative tortfeasors was engaged in traditional maritime
activity alleged to have proximately caused the incident, then the supposedly
wrongful activity "involves" traditional maritime activity. The possible
involvement of other, nonmaritime parties does not affect the jurisdictional
inquiry as to the maritime party. Ante, at 13-14. I do not, however, understand
the Court's opinion to suggest that, having found admiralty jurisdiction
over a particular claim against a particular party, a court must then exercise
admiralty jurisdiction over all the claims and parties involved in the
case. Rather, the court should engage in the usual supplemental jurisdiction
and impleader inquiries. See 28 U.S.C. 1367 (1988 ed., Supp. V); Fed. Rule
Civ. Proc. 14; see also ante, at 3. I find nothing in the Court's opinion
to the contrary.

I agree with the majority's
conclusion that 28 U.S.C. 1333(1) grants the District Court jurisdiction
over the great Chicago flood of 1992. But I write separately because I
cannot agree with the test the Court applies to determine the boundaries
of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. Instead of continuing our unquestioning
allegiance to the multi-factor approach of Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U.S. 358
(1990), I would restore the jurisdictional inquiry to the simple question
whether the tort occurred on a vessel on the navigable waters of the United
States. If so, then admiralty jurisdiction exists. This clear, bright-line
rule, which the Court applied until recently, ensures that judges and litigants
will not waste their resources in determining the extent of federal subject-matter
jurisdiction.

I

This case requires the Court
to redefine once again the line between federal admiralty jurisdiction
and state power due to an ambiguous balancing test. The fact that we have
had to revisit this question for the third time in a little over 10 years
indicates the defects of the Court's current approach. The faults of balancing
tests are clearest, and perhaps most destructive, in the area of jurisdiction.
Vague and obscure rules may permit judicial power to reach beyond its constitutional
and statutory limits, or they may discourage judges from hearing disputes
properly before them. Such rules waste judges' and litigants' resources
better spent on the merits, as this case itself demonstrates. It is especially
unfortunate that this has occurred in admiralty, an area that once provided
a jurisdictional rule almost as clear as the 9th and 10th verses of Genesis:
"And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto
one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the
dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas:
and God saw that it was good." The Holy Bible,, Geneses 1:9-10 (King James
Version).

As recently as 1972, courts
and parties experienced little difficulty in determining whether a case
triggered admiralty jurisdiction, thanks to the simple "situs rule." In
The Plymouth, 3 Wall. 20, 36 (1866), this Court articulated the situs rule
thus: "[e]very species of tort, however occurring, and whether on board
a vessel or not, if upon the high seas or navigable waters, is of admiralty
cognizance." This simple, clear test, test, which Justice Story pronounced
while riding circuit, see Thomas v. Lane, 23 F. Cas. 957, 960 (No. 13,902)
(CC Me. 1813), did not require alteration until 1948, when Congress included
within the admiralty jurisdiction torts caused on water, but whose effects
were felt on land. See Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction Act, 62 Stat.
496, 46 U.S.C. App. 740.

The simplicity of this test
was marred by modern cases that tested the boundaries of admiralty jurisdiction
with ever more unusual facts. In Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of
Cleveland, 409 U.S. 249 (1972), we held that a plane crash in Lake Erie
was not an admiralty case within the meaning of 1333(1) because the tort
did not "bear a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity."
Id., at 268. What subsequent cases have failed to respect, however, is
Executive Jet's clear limitation to torts involving aircraft. As we said:

"One area in which locality
as the exclusive test of admiralty tort jurisdiction has given rise to
serious problems in application is that of aviation. . . . [W]e have concluded
that maritime locality alone is not a sufficient predicate for admiralty
jurisdiction in aviation tort cases." Id., at 261 (emphasis added).

Our identification of the "significant
relationship" occurred wholly in the context of a discussion of the difficulties
that aircraft posed for maritime law. In fact, while we recognized the
extensive criticism of the strict locality rule, we noted that "for the
traditional types of maritime torts, the traditional test has worked quite
satisfactorily." Id., at 254. Thus Executive Jet, properly read, holds
that if a tort occurred on board a vessel on the navigable waters, the
situs test applies, but if the tort involved an airplane, then the "significant
relationship" requirement is added.

Although it modified the
strict locality test, Executive Jet still retained a clear rule that I
could apply comfortably to the main business of the admiralty court. Nonetheless,
the simplicity and clarity of this approach met its demise in Foremost
Ins. Co. v. Richardson, 457 U.S. 668 (1982). That case involved the collision
of two pleasure boats on the navigable waters, a tort that some commentators
had argued did not fall within the admiralty jurisdiction because it did
not implicate maritime commerce. See, e.g., Stolz, Pleasure Boating and
Admiralty: Erie at Sea, 51 Calif. L. Rev. 661 (1963). The Court could have
resolved the case and found jurisdiction simply by applying the situs test.
Instead, responding to the arguments that admiralty jurisdiction was limited
to commercial maritime activity, the Court found that the tort's "significant
connection with traditional maritime activity" and the accident's "potential
disruptive impact" on maritime commerce prompted an exercise of federal
jurisdiction. 457 U.S., at 674 -675.

It is clear that Foremost
overextended Executive Jet, which had reserved the significant relationship
inquiry for aviation torts. As JUSTICE SCALIA noted in Sisson, Executive
Jet is better "understood as resting on the quite simple ground that the
tort did not involve a vessel, which had traditionally been thought required
by the leading scholars in the field." 497 U.S., at 369 -370 (opinion concurring
in judgment). Executive Jet did not in the least seek to alter the strict
locality test for torts involving waterborne vessels. Foremost, however,
converted Executive Jet's exception into the rule. In addition to examining
situs, Foremost required federal courts to ask whether the tort bore a
significant relationship to maritime commerce, and whether the accident
had a potential disruptive impact on maritime commerce. 457 U.S., at 673
-675. The lower courts adopted different approaches as they sought to apply
Foremost's alteration of the Executive Jet test. See Sisson, supra, at
365, n. 4 (citing cases).

Sisson then affirmed the
inherent vagueness of the Foremost test. Sisson involved a marina fire
that was caused by a faulty washer-dryer unit on a pleasure yacht. The
fire destroyed the yacht and damaged several vessels in addition to the
marina. In finding admiralty jurisdiction, the Court held that the federal
judicial power would extend to such cases only if: (1) in addition to situs,
(2) the "incident" poses a potential hazard to maritime commerce, and (3)
the "activity" giving rise to the incident bears a substantial relationship
to traditional maritime activity. 497 U.S., at 362 -364. The traditional
situs test also would have sustained a finding of jurisdiction because
the fire started on board a vessel on the waterways. Thus, what was once
a simple question - did the tort occur on the navigable waters - had become
a complicated, multi-factor analysis.

The disruption and confusion
created by the Foremost-Sisson approach is evident from the post-Sisson
decisions of the lower courts and from the majority opinion itself. Faced
with the task of determining what is an "incident" or "activity" for Sisson
purposes, the Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Circuits simply reverted to the
multi-factor test they had employed before Sisson. See Price v. Price,
929 F.2d 131, 135-136 (CA4 1991); Coats v. Penrod Drilling Corp., 5 F.3d
877, 885-886 (CA5 1993); Delta Country Ventures, Inc. v. Magana, 986 F.2d
1260, 1263 (CA9 1993). The District Court's opinion in this case is typical:
while nodding to Sisson, the court focused its entire attention on a totality-of-the-circumstances
test, which includes factors such as "the functions and roles of the parties"
and "[t]he traditional concepts of the role of admiralty law." Pet. for
Cert. of Chicago 32a. Such considerations have no place in the Sisson test
and should have no role in any jurisdictional inquiry. The dangers of a
totality-of-the-circumstances approach to jurisdiction should be obvious.
An undefined test requires courts and litigants to devote substantial resources
to determine whether a federal court may hear a specific case. Such a test
also introduces undesirable uncertainty into the affairs of private actors
- even those involved in common maritime activities - who cannot predict
whether or not their conduct may justify the exercise of admiralty jurisdiction.

Although the majority makes
an admirable attempt to clarify what Sisson obscures, I am afraid that
its analysis cannot mitigate the confusion of the Sisson test. Thus, faced
with the "potential to disrupt maritime commerce" prong ante, at 10, the
majority must resort to "an intermediate level of possible generality"
to determine the "`general features'" of the incident here, id., at 11.
The majority does not explain the origins of "levels of generality," nor,
to my knowledge, do we employ such a concept in other areas of jurisdiction.
We do not use "levels of generality" to characterize residency or amount
in controversy for diversity purposes, or to determine the presence of
a federal question. Nor does the majority explain why an "intermediate"
level of generality is appropriate. It is even unclear what an intermediate
level of generality is, and we cannot expect that district courts will
apply such a concept uniformly in similar cases. It is far from obvious
how the undefined intermediate level of generality indicates that the "incident"
for Sisson purposes is that of a vessel damaging an underwater structure.

The majority also applies
levels of generality to the next prong of Sisson - whether the tortfeasor
is engaged in "activity" that shows a "substantial relationship to traditional
maritime activity." The majority decides that the activity is repair work
by a vessel on a navigable waterway. But, as the petitioners rightly argue,
the "activity" very well could be bridge repair or pile driving. One simply
cannot tell due to the ambiguities intrinsic to Sisson and to the uncertainty
as to the meaning of levels of generality. The majority's response implicitly
acknowledges the vagueness inherent in Sisson: "Although there is inevitably
some play in the joints in selecting the right level of generality when
applying the Sisson test, the inevitable imprecision is not an excuse for
whimsy." Ante, at 14. The Court cannot provide much guidance to district
courts as to the correct level of generality; instead, it can only say
that any level is probably sufficient so long as it does not lead to "whimsy."
When it comes to these issues, I prefer a clearer rule, which this Court
has demanded with respect to federal question or diversity jurisdiction.
Indeed, the "play in the joints" and "imprecision" that the Court finds
"inevitable" easily could be avoided by returning to the test that prevailed
before Foremost. In its effort to create an elegant, general test that
could include all maritime torts, Sisson has only disrupted what was once
a simple inquiry.

II

It should be apparent that
this Court does not owe Sisson the benefit of stare decisis. As shown above,
Sisson and Foremost themselves overextended Executive Jet and deviated
from a long tradition of admiralty jurisprudence. More importantly, the
new test of Sisson and Foremost did not produce greater clarity or simplicity
in exchange for departing from a century of undisturbed practice. Instead,
as discussed earlier, the two cases have produced only confusion and disarray
in the lower courts and in this Court as well. It would seem that in the
area of federal subject-matter jurisdiction, vagueness and ambiguity are
grounds enough to revisit an unworkable prior decision.

In place of Sisson I would
follow the test described at the outset. When determining whether maritime
jurisdiction exists under 1333(1), a federal district court should ask
if the tort occurred on a vessel on the navigable waters. This approach
won the approval of two Justices in Sisson, see 497 U.S., at 373 (SCALIA,
J., joined by White, J., concurring in judgment). Although JUSTICE SCALIA's
Sisson concurrence retained a "normal maritime activities" component, it
recognized that anything a vessel does in the navigable waters would meet
that requirement, and that "[i]t would be more straightforward to jettison
the `traditional maritime activity' analysis entirely." Id., at 374. I
wholly agree and have chosen the straightforward approach, which, for all
of its simplicity, would have produced the same results the Court arrived
at in Executive Jet, Foremost, Sisson, and this case. Although this approach
"might leave within admiralty jurisdiction a few unusual actions," ibid.,
such freakish cases will occur rarely. In any event, the resources needed
to resolve them "will be saved many times over by a clear jurisdictional
rule that makes it unnecessary to decide" what is a traditional maritime
activity and what poses a threat to maritime commerce. Id., at 374-375.

In this case, a straightforward
application of the proposed test easily produces a finding of admiralty
jurisdiction. As the majority quite ably demonstrates, the situs requirement
is satisfied because the tort was caused by a "spud barge" on the Chicago
River. Ante, at 6-8. Although the accident's effects were felt on land,
the Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction Act brings the event within 1333(1).
While I agree with the majority's analysis of this question, I disagree
with its decision to continue on to other issues. A simple application
of the situs test would yield the same result the Court reaches at the
end of its analysis.

This Court pursues clarity
and efficiency in other areas of federal subject-matter jurisdiction, and
it should demand no less in admiralty and maritime law. The test I have
proposed would produce much the same results as the Sisson analysis without
the need for wasteful litigation over threshold jurisdictional questions.
Because Sisson departed from a century of precedent, is unworkable, and
is easily replaced with a bright-line rule, I concur only in the judgment.